We’re talking about tracking features which allow supervision of things such as,

Social networking websites

Web

Search

Video

Supervision for these categories is also available for HTTPS content.

But to fully avail that feature users first have to install an extension.

The problem with the extension is that users can only install it on mainstream browsers such as,

Mozilla Firefox

Internet Explorer

Google Chrome

And that leads us to the second main issue with this supervision feature.

The child can simply disable the web browser’s extension and/or plugin at will.

Then the child can just go ahead and browse the internet to his/her heart’s content.

After disabling the plugin, the child can also access HTTPS-encrypted websites.

These would include services such as anonymizing proxies.

So, you can rest assured that once the child disables the extension, all bets are off.

This is why we think that Norton seriously needs to pay a lot of attention to this area and improve how its browser extension works.

This Is How You Are Supposed To Test Symantec Norton Family Premier Web Filter

In order to test the feature out, first, you will need several web browsers.

That bit is easy.

Just download them.

And install them.

Then try to access a website that has HTTP encryption.

Twitter, is a good choice here.

Then, go to Symantec Norton Family Premier and block the category that says social media.

You can find this option in the House Rules.

After that, it is better to change the settings related to supervision to their highest level.

Then install the web browser extension.

And then test if Norton works appropriately.

What Did We Find?

Our research shows that Symantec Norton Family Premier would block Twitter if you followed our procedure above.

It would also report this activity.

Then it will throw up a big red flag.

That is, if you are using Google Chrome.

What about other web browsers?

Our research shows that Norton would actually allow you to access the site on web browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Opera.

In fact, it would not even give you a warning message.

Even if you try to explicitly block Twitter, it won’t block your access to Twitter.

As explained before, that is only because Twitter uses HTTPS encryption.

Symantec Norton Family Premier works perfectly on unencrypted sites.

And that category includes websites such as CNN and the rest.

It will even block those sites on Opera and Edge web browser.

For best results, it is better to just block the related category or at least add the category to the existing exception list.

Our multiple research efforts also show that even if the user blocks broad content categories or even add a particular website to the Restricted Website list, the user’s child would still have the opportunity to access any HTTPS-encrypted website if the child simply uses a not-supported web browser.

As you can probably tell, that is not fine.

In fact, these are some of the biggest shortcomings of Symantec Norton Family Premier.

A child is free to take advantage of these so-called workarounds.

Symantec Norton Family Premier applies Restrictions local on any device.

Hence, a given child can’t simply get around the restrictions or blocks by simply using a VPN service.

Norton has systems in place which alert parents if the child tries to make use of an anonymizing web proxy service.

Of course, if your kid just uses a web browser that Norton does not support, then you wouldn’t know a thing.

Users who want broader control over what their child sees on the internet should make use of OpenDNS Home VIP.

They can even use SAfeDNS for the purpose of whole-networking content filtering.

As far as the iOS and Android platforms go, Symantec Norton Family Premier recommends users to force their kids to use the company’s integrated Norton web browser.

On the Android platform, parents should go ahead and just block all other web browser apps in order to make sure that their child can only use a web browser that Norton can monitor.

On the iOS platform, things are a bit different.

The MDM app that we talked about before is going to disable Safari.

So all that parents need to do on the iOS platform is to toggle the option that says Installing Apps.

This option is available in the Restrictions section of Norton’s main settings applications.

Our research shows that this will prevent kids from getting around any rules that their parents have set.

As a browser, the Norton browser is reasonable.

It can block non-encrypted sites as well as HTTPS in a reliable manner.

Most of all, it is sufficiently fast.

Time Supervision

Symantec Norton Family Premier gives users a lot of methods to manage their children online.

One of them is Time Supervision.

This method allows parents to monitor their children’s device use on a hardware basis.

If the child has reached his/her time allowance limit then Norton won’t allow any more device time.

In other words, they won’t be able to use it.

If the child tries to use the device at a time that the schedule does not allow, then Norton will block the use of the device.

This is pretty similar to what Net Nanny offers.

Net Nanny can limit the total amount of time the child can spend in the online world.

But it does not do anything about the hardware.

Norton locks down the user hardware.

Another Norton competitor is Qustodio.

With Qustodio, parents have the option of scheduling hardware use.

They can also schedule internet use.

The third option they have is to limit the time the child spends on specific applications and/or programs.

Symantec Norton Family Premier time supervision feature works both on Windows and Android.

Unfortunately, it is not available for the iOS platform.

Just like with the content filtering feature, the time supervision feature comes pre-configured based on the kid’s age.

It does that automatically without the user having to change settings.

The other thing readers need to know is that the preset age ranges can’t or rather don’t affect the number of hours the child can spend on his/her smartphone device.

But these preset age ranges can and do modify the specific hours in which the child can operate any given device.

Users have the option of changing the default schedule.

They can also enable daily limits on various devices.

But in the case of applying daily limits, users will have to do the same for each given day of the week separately.

The official app will give parents the option of increasing the daily limit that the child can use the device for in half-hour and one-hour increments.

Other competing parental control apps do something different.

They use grid-style schedules.

And we prefer that approach more than Norton’s.

Why?

Because with a grid-style schedule it is very easy for users to block out a given time range on each day of the given week with the help of nothing but a single mouse-drag.

In such models, users also have the ability to set time limits.

Then they can move forward to set supervision levels for each individual day.

The option of High supervision helps users to completely block the child after the child has consumed all of his/her time limit.

Then there is the option of Low.

This option is useful when uses only want to monitor the activity after the child has reached his/her time limit.

Users can easily set it up with a PIN though so that the child (or parents themselves) can access the device in case of emergency.

Net Nanny has a time allowance function that covers each and every device.

So it a child turn out of his/her internet time on his/her iPad then he/she is out of internet time on all devices.

The child can’t just switch his/her device from iPad to PC and continue surfing the internet.

Other parental control apps such as Qustodio tries to swing it both ways.

It allows users to select between individual settings and an overall allowed time limit.

Qustodio has a Time tab which is available in the Activity page of the app.

Within the tab, parents have the option of viewing a calendar.

That calendar shows parents how much time does their child has left and has used on any given day.

Qustodio can track each PC, tablet, and phone on a separate basis.

Moreover, the same page also lists out occasions where the kid actually ran out of internet time.

It can also show the times when the kid disregarded Qustodio’s timeout warning message.

Facebook Monitoring

Symantec Norton Family Premier can monitor all Facebook activity.

But the user has to make sure that the child is using the Windows platform.

And that the child is using the machine with a supported web browser.

Symantec Norton Family Premier will send parents a notification if the child manages to create an account by inputting a false age number.

Norton will also notify parents each time the child tries to post personal data.

We’ll talk more about protecting personal data in a short while in this review.

For now, users need to know that Norton allows parents to block any and all access to many other social media websites in their entirety.

Norton can also disable social media mobile apps.

Parental control apps that offer social media monitoring usually require the user to install an app.

What does that mean for parents?

That usually means that the parent of the child will need the child’s actual login credentials.

It means one other thing.

The child is free to uninstall the app at any given time.

Parental control apps such as Qustodio take an interesting and a rather novel approach to this problem.

It Qustodio recognizes that the device has not enabled its app, it automatically blocks any access to the website in question.

Features like that enable Qustodio to track any and all social activity.

This includes any posts, comments or pictures that the child engages in.

The hardware that the child uses does not matter in Qustodio’s case.

Norton is different from Qustodio.

It takes the simpler approach of watching the web browser.

And taking notes whenever the user’s child is using a social media website such as Facebook.

This approach may work for Norton but we see one huge problem with it.

Facebook, as a platform, changes a lot.

And that means, it can sometimes disable Norton’s social media monitoring feature.

Moreover, the user will have to contend with no social media monitoring unless and until Norton engineers can work hard and push out a fix.

Bonus Features

Symantec Norton Family Premier also has a Search Supervision feature

Users can turn this feature on to allow Norton to force search engines such as Yahoo, YouTube, Ask and Google to use Safe Search.

Kids will be kids.

And will try to turn Safe Search off.

However, if they do it while Norton Search Supervision is around, it will turn Safe Search right back on.

Moreover, this feature enables parents to see a special list.

This list shows them what kids are searching for.

To view the list, users must first go to the Activity Page.

And then click on the Search tab.

Norton’s official website claims that it can force-enable its Search Supervision on search engine, Bing, as well.

But our research shows that it won’t lock down the Safe Search feature.

Now, you may think that all of the features that we have talked about till now are features that almost all good parental control apps offer.

And you would be right.

So, let’s talk about an uncommon feature.

Symantec Norton Family Premier has a feature which can monitor all the videos that the parent’s child watches on video platforms such as Hulu and YouTube.

To see the list of each and every video that your child has watched on YouTube and Hulu, first you will have to go the Activity page.

And then click on the Video tab.

Each and every item on this page would include the time and date when your child viewed the video.

The page will also show the videos’ category.

When the user tries to open any item on the list, the app shows the user the full description of the item.

It also displays a thumbnail of the video image.

Along with that, it mentions the link so that the user can himself/herself view the video clip and take further action.

As reviewers of Symantec Norton Family Premier, we would like Norton to apply this functionality to other video streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix as well.

Sometimes Kids act with naivety.

And end up sharing their personal information a bit too easily.

With Symantec Norton Family Premier, users have the option of recording their kid’s SSN along with email address and phone number.

They can also fill out a free-form field if they want to include further personal data.

If the user’s child tries to share his/her personal data or information online, the Norton app will warn the child that his/her parents have not allowed that.

Moreover, it will also send the user an email notification about the incident.

With that said, this feature is limited.

It is limited in the sense that it can’t really track data that is sent on pages that are secured.

Or HTTPS pages.

Hence, no matter how useful it looks on paper, that usefulness is pretty limited.

Symantec Norton Family Premier has recently added another extra feature.

It is called the Instant Lock feature.

The Android and Windows platform can take full advantage of this feature which helps to temporarily render a device unusable.

It also locks down any and all activity.

In fact, on the Android platform, the child is allowed to make some calls.

These calls can only connect to approved contacts.

But as far as apps are concerned, the child can’t launch them when the Instant Lock feature is working full-time.

So what about the iOS platform?

Does the iOS have this feature?

Yes.

But only somewhat.

The MDM controls this feature on the iOS platform.

And hence anyone can uninstall the profile without even triggering a notification.

With that said, it is true that for a user’s child to do that, the child will first have to enable the device’s airplane mode.

Messaging And Apps

Modern kids are quite different from kids of the old.

What we mean to say is that modern kids use several devices to access the internet.

They may use a smartphone or a tablet or even a clunky old (and slow) desktop computer.

Fortunately, Symantec Norton Family Premier has no problems in recognizing that fact.

And that’s why it has introduced a number of features which specifically deal with the problem of kids using multiple mobile platforms.

Users have to keep in mind that a lot of features that Norton offers as a part of its Family Premier package do not work in iOS.

The company simply does not offer these features for the iOS platform as we have alluded to before.

If the user makes his/her way to the House Rules page and then clicks on the App tab, the user can see a list which displays all the apps that the user has installed on the device.

To block an app, all that the user has to do is to check the related box.

We have also noticed that this App page points out to the user that it won’t block processes which install new apps unless and until the user blocks those apps first.

But if the user pays particular attention to the Activity Page and its App tab, the user would notice new installations.

Symantec Norton Family Premier also provides features with which users can monitor their child’s SMS messages along with all the contacts on the Android platform.

Parents can also avail the option of viewing their child’s friends on the mobile platform.

Along with that, they can assign two kinds of status to each friend.

They can either choose to “monitored” a particular friend or use to give the friend an “unmonitored” status.

The monitored status would mean that the device will allow messaging with the friend but it will also log conversations.

The unmonitored status is where the app allows messaging but does not record conversation logs.

Our research shows that if you are running the latest version of Android, you can’t block a contact outright.

That same research also told us that Symantec Norton Family Premier is likely to record both outgoing and incoming messages without causing any issues.

It is also likely to notify the users that Norton had actually successfully logged the related activity.

But users need to understand that as far as MMS messages go, Norton does not store their content.

It only saves the instance of the actual activity.

Moreover, this function is also, kind of, limited to SMS type of messages.

In other words, this function will not apply to online services such as,

Line

Signal

WhatsApp

But users don’t need to despair.

They can just block all these apps individually using Norton’s other features.

Which other features?

Other features such as App Supervision.

This feature is only available on the Android platform.

So iOS users will have to think of something else.

Location

Symantec Norton Family Premier wants to accomplish more than just keeping your kids safe in the online world.

It wants to help users ensure that their kids are safe even in the real world.

And the way it does that is by recording their location.

The location feature is available for both iOS and Android platform.

The good news is that Norton makes use of all the standard methods which parental control apps use to determine the child’s location.

And that includes methods such as,

Monitoring via WiFi

Monitoring via GPS

In fact, Symantec Norton Family Premier also tracks the child via the SIM card.

To access the location tab, users should make their way to the Activity page.

Within the Location tab, users can view a complete map which has pins to indicate recent locations of the child.

It also shows the user a timeline.

This timeline identifies when the app dropped the pin at a particular location.

Users can click the pins in order to get the address of the location along with an accuracy estimate.

Perhaps this is a good time to mention that Symantec Norton Family Premier app does not come with the geo-fencing functionality.

Hence, users can’t really set the app up to alert them if their child tries to leave a specific geographical boundary.

Zohair is currently a content crafter at Security Gladiators and has been involved in the technology industry for more than a decade. He is an engineer by training and, naturally, likes to help people solve their tech related problems. When he is not writing, he can usually be found practicing his free-kicks in the ground beside his house.

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